Dr. Sunyata Song must travel across the Milky Way to learn to communicate with the greatest discovery of her century: an artificial intelligence the size of a stellar system, in Hugo Award-winning author Bear's next science fiction epic.


Information doesn't want to be free. Information wants to vanish without a trace.


Sunya Song's job is to stop that from happening.

She's an archinformist: a specialist historian whose job usually involves sitting at a console at her university job near the Galactic Core, sorting ancient documents and restoring corrupted files. But now, the research opportunity of a lifetime has sent her - and her family - halfway across the galaxy to save the archaeological find of the century: an ancient alien artificial intelligence called the Baomind.


As vast as a stellar system, the Baomind orbits a dying red giant, and the star's time has nearly ended.


The remote research station and its small fleet of ships come under attack by fanatic Freeport pirates who believe that artificial intelligence is an abomination that must be destroyed, putting the lives of Sunya and her family at risk.


Tens of thousands of light years from home, isolated from all help, Sunya is the only one who can save them all.